Knowledge

There’s a long, almost devotional cultural history of revering the tragic. We’ve long associated suffering with seriousness, and seriousness with truth. Thinkers in pain are taken more seriously than those who glow. Nietzsche with his migraines, his solitude, his universe of dread and will and collapse. Kafka, whispering from his tubercular... See more

The third and deepest kinds of friendship, according to Aristotle, are friendships of virtue . That is, you like a person because of their character. They might be fun, they might be useful, but even if they aren’t, you like them anyway. It is what the marriage vows are getting at with the line: “To have and to hold, from this day forward, for... See more

Anxiety is an emotional response to risk. When we experience anxiety about an event, we perceive the risk to be real and possible, likely to occur in the near term.

Epistemic Anxiety is the feeling of uneasiness, tension, and concern when you want to know the truth. You worry that your knowledge is incomplete and full of errors, and you may believe... See more

There are three types of friendship, Aristotle says. The first one is based on pleasure—the way our relationship in high school was all about laughing, or the way you can date someone because they are hot and make you feel good. The second is based on utility—you’re friends because it is useful, because your friend plays drums and you need a... See more

Psychologists call it “self-objectification”. You turn yourself into a tool, an instrument for efficiency. The self that once wondered, wandered, desired, that messy, imaginative creature, gets fired for lack of measurable output.